A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE EIGHTH YEAR STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING NARRATIVE PARAGRAPH BY USING PICTURE SERIES AT SMPI SUNAN KALI JAGA JEMBER IN THE 2011/2012ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

This research was descriptive research. It was intended to describe the students’ ability in writing narrative paragraph by using picture series. It was conducted at SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember which was chosen by purposive method with the following consideration: 1. The School principal and the English teacher gave permission to the researcher to conduct the descriptive research; 2. the school gave facilitation to the researcher to conduct the research. The general problem of the research was “How is the eighth year students’ ability in wtiting narrative paragraph by using picture series at SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember in the 2011/1012 academic year? And the specific problem of this research were “How is the eighth year students’ ability in applying past tense in the writing narrative paragraph by using picture series at SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember kin 2011/1012 academic year?’ and “How is the eighth year students’ ability in organizing ideas in the form of narrative paragraph by using picture series at SMPI Sunan Kalijag Jember in 2011/1012 academic year?”. The general objective of this research was to describe the eighth year students’ ability in writing narrative paragraph by using picture series at SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year. The specific objective of this research were to describe the eighth year students’ ability in applying past tense and in organizing ideas in writing narrative paragraph by using picture series at SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year. The subjects of the research were the eighth grade students. The numbers of subject respondents were determined by applying random sampling method by using lottery. The total number of students as respondents was 30 students that cover 3 classes. Each class consists of 42 students. Interview and writing test were used to gather the data. The interview was done to get the surface information about the teaching and learning English in SMPI Sunan Kalijaga Jember such as: the students’ difficulties in writing, the media and the text book that is used by the English teacher to teach writing. The writing test was done to get the data about students’ writing ability. The tests were in the form of essay. The students were asked to make narrative paragraph based on picture series given consisting of eight up to ten sentences in 45 minutes. The results of data analysis were described to answer the research problem. In details, the students’ ability in writing narrative paragraph by using picture series were classified as poor category with mean score:57.26. The students’ ability on the aspect on simple past tense was categorized poor (M:58.63) and on the aspect of organization categorized poor (M:56.81). Therefore, it is suggested that, the students’ ability in writing narrative paragraph by using picture series needs to be improved by more practices especially in grammar (simple past tense) and organization.